The public schools in Washington, D.C. continue to set a record for per pupil costs in the nation. The District has long been the most expensive system in the country and reportedly spends roughly $30,000 per student in a system that continues to produce appalling results in national studies. The latest such study is by the respected National Center for Education Statistics which has found that in 2013 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not “proficient” in reading and 81 percent were not “proficient” in math.
The only improvement is marginal at best. The percentage of students who performed at or above the NAEP Basic level was 57 percent in 2013. This percentage was greater than that in 2011 (51 percent) and in 1998 (44 percent). However, this is an extremely low level of performance and 43 percent are below even that level.
What is equally distressing is that this study went with virtually no mention in Washington. Indeed, the Washington Post gave more attention to the discarding of trash bins than this most recent educational data.
D.C. eighth graders scored an average of 248 out of 500 in reading. Mississippi finished next to last with an average of 253.
DC spends more than twice as other large cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas, though figures vary between studies and reports. The figure is derived from dividing total expenditures in Table 1 by enrollment in Table 15 of the Census Bureau statistics. The Census Bureau’s Table 11 puts the per capital costs for elementary schools at over $27,000 up to 2010. (note that this is a different calculation than Table 8 on per capita spending levels).
New York spends $5,353 less per student.
By the way, of that money, only $10,584 per pupil is spent on “instruction” and $1,613 on “instructional staff.”
Whatever the cost, the D.C. schools continue to fail and thousands of students are facing a dim future without basic skills to succeed. Many will be left to a cycle poverty where they lack the necessary skills to succeed in a new and more demanding job market. It is a chilling statistic that is measured in real terms in the lives of thousands of students.
These statistics are truly frightening. D.C. has a long reputation for wasteful and poorly managed systems. This low level of performance is even more striking when it is between two of the most successful school systems in the country: Montgomery (MD) and Fairfax Counties (VA). Clearly D.C. deals with a large number of impoverished students, but that does not explain this continuing failure of this system at such a high cost. Other cities have such impoverished areas and do far better with far less. The city seems to be continuing to discard thousands of students with the same level of care as its recent trash bin scandal. Yet, there remains no serious backlash against the city’s elected officials or demands for a fundamental change in the school system after decades of such poor performance.
Thanks, Elaine.
Karen
CNN report that has 2010 DC spending @ $18,667.
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/21/which-places-spent-most-per-student-on-education/
feynman,
Your link didn’t work. I’ll try re-posting it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/overall-dc-school-enrollment-%20increases-with-charters-growing-faster-than-dcps/2013/10/17/0f8dd7fc-375e-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html
Karen
Here’s a Wapo link that has DC enrollment OVER 80,000. That’s going to put some big dent in the numbers from the AEI brainac.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/overall-dc-school-enrollment-
increases-with-charters-growing-faster-than-dcps/2013/10/17/0f8dd7fc-375e-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html
Maybe Cato did the same thing. McShane even said he began with the Cato piece.
Karen
Where did McShane get 46,000+ for DC students? That’s awfully low.
My figures are 76,000/77.000 And I read an article that says enrollment will increase to 80,000+ for 2015.
McShane is not looking reliable.
Karen
Your Huffpo link is from Micheal McShane. He works for American Enterprise Institute. A conservative think tank.
NEA is non-partisan. AEI is not. The Cato guy SAYS the US Census report made a mistake. That kind of a statement requires some heavy duty explaining. WITH charts. It also requires a heavy duty explanation on why the NEA figures are incorrect. And we need to know if all their data are corrupted – or is it just DC? Maybe Issa has time to look into it…
Why did you use “apparently” when stating that DC was was not reporting accurately. Are you doubtful regarding their inaccuracy?
Nick,
It’s rather timely that Karen’s Huffpo source is an AEI employee.
Elaine,
I agree that high stakes testing is not only bad policy,but it forces schools to teach to the test.
I have deleted a couple of comments which again violated our civility rule. We do not need personal attacks. If you do not respect or like other posters, then you are free to ignore them. Please do not use the comment section to make personal attacks.
Look what the House did today! Truly a brilliant bunch…
“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866. ”
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These are our representatives, people. As Pierce would say: cherish them.
School reform came to Massachusetts more than twenty years ago.
feynman,
This is how it is: I get criticized when I use HuffPo as a source of information…but Karen doesn’t.
Go ahead, Nick. Diminish me.
Or take your ball and go home.
Teach me something. Provide a link on Drudge to a liberal source.
But my best suggestion stands. Be a smart consumer. Check the source. Read the links.
We have Alice and the Mad Hatter. Good night. Continue the Wonderland conversation w/o me. I prefer reality.
Elaine just provided an example of a source from Huffpo – AEI. Most assuredly conservative.
Here’s a suggestion. Be a smart consumer of news. Check the sources. Learn who to trust. Better yet – trust but verify. Almost guaranteed to learn something.
ASK QUESTIONS. Look at the numbers. Do they look funny? Where did they come from? Uh oh. Cato. Maybe it is worth a look.
I could find links on Drudge to liberal sources, does that make it liberal?? You diminish yourself when you act like this.
Come on!! News aggregators Drudge Conservative, HuffPo Liberal. Daily Beast, Liberal Breitbart Conservative, It’s not rocket science.
No, Elaine. Most emphatically not.
Huffpo is a news aggregator. . BTW, Breitbart was a founder. A source may be either liberal or conservative. Have to go on a case-by-case basis.